epidemiology

Military veterans may have higher rates of death from the progressive neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease, than non-veterans. However, few studies have examined what might be behind this association. The authors of a…

It would be hard to miss the public health messages informing us of the risks of alcohol. Still, some studies have suggested that light-to-moderate drinking could have a protective effect, at least for death from cardiovascular disease. Meanwhile, other research…

No one likes injections, but most of us are glad to receive the many effective vaccines against infectious diseases such as measles and polio. In recent years, however, a growing anti-vaccine backlash has led to concerns over whether enough of…

Professional support boosts benefit of blood pressure self-monitoring While home blood pressure monitoring is known to help treat patients with hypertension, how best to implement this remains unclear. New PLOS Medicine research suggests that people who monitor their own blood…

Researchers genotyped a medieval pilgrim afflicted with leprosy In a recent study published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, researchers genotyped a skeleton excavated from a leprosy hospital cemetery in Winchester, U.K. They found that the genome of the leprosy-causing bacteria Mycobacterium…

Climate change has already caused many local extinctions Many studies have shown that species are shifting their geographic ranges over time as the climate warms. John Wiens at the University of Arizona used this research to show that local extinctions…

The tsetse fly, which serves as the vector for human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), may have very selective feeding preferences when choosing its wildlife hosts, according to a PLOS ONE study by Harriet Auty of the Epidemiology Research Unit at Scotland’s…